


The Night Comes Down

by Shoi



Series: Deep Cuts [4]
Category: Guilty Gear
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-30 23:09:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shoi/pseuds/Shoi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing would ever suffice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Night Comes Down

**Author's Note:**

> departing.

It was over shortly after the rain began, and the only thing he felt was a low burning anger, a feeling almost like indignation. Effrontery. 

It had nothing to do with the boy. It never had. Of all things, the boy was innocent.

He reshouldered the blade's carrying strap and went forward, where he knelt in the mud, heedless of mess. Ky lay on his side, his pale hair strewn limp and wet across his face, the strands touching his lips. His eyes were closed and still beneath their lids, even the angry bend of his brow gone from his face. He looked like a drowned thing, like something sacred profaned by the blood on his mouth and along his hairline, and when Sol put his palm against Ky's cheek his skin was cool and clammy to the touch. 

_If you were a different creature, Frederick, what then? What would have happened to him?_

The air smelled sharply of ozone. He brushed a line of blood away from Ky's cheekbone and reached over him to clamp his other hand around the humming, hissing blade that lay a few inches beyond the boy's outstretched hand. 

"Hush," he told it, as it snarled and spat sparks beneath his fingers. "He'll be all right." 

The sword did not believe him. He felt its living will twist angrily against him, seeking a place to bury fangs. 

"Go to sleep," he told it firmly, as a father to an errant child, and the presence faded back into a dormant hum. It took him a moment or two to strap it down alongside his own blade, which began immediately to croon a low and comforting melody to the other through its sheath, warming slightly against his back like a burst of sunshine through clouds. Ky never moved. 

_If you were like the rest of them, what would you do to him?_

"Nothing," he muttered under his breath, turning the boy's head gently to wipe the mud away from his eye and mouth. "Because I'm not like them." 

The anger returned, a little stronger now, but it was more complex than rage. Indignation, perhaps, at being chased like this over something that had been his all along, something molded to his hand and his hand alone. Perhaps even sorrow, that it had come to this, this duel in the storm, the helpless, hurt look on Ky's face as he'd brandished his weapon alone, shouting his accusations. He'd come without uniform, without even basic armor -- only the thin and comfortable practice clothes issued to the Knights at their intake. Sol suspected he'd come directly from practicing his forms the moment he'd heard what Sol had done. 

When he lifted Ky into his arms, felt the senseless dead weight of him, the chill of his skin, and heard the soft moan of pain that escaped his lips as he was moved, he understood what the feeling was, and why it had come. He shifted his shoulder carefully, until the boy's head lolled securely into the crook of his neck, and he turned back in the direction he had come, aware with every step that it was foolishness, and beyond caring.

There were candles still burning in the window of the High Commander's office, but few others. The Order was looking for him actively, he knew, but he suspected the rain would hamper them somewhat. Long enough for him to finish his business to his satisfaction. He hesitated outside the arched entryway to the cathedral, and felt a small spike of self loathing rise up as well.

_God already knows your sins, Frederick. What's one more?_

He went in. 

The chapel was dark and deserted, and his boots squeaked on the polished stone floor, the sound of splattering mud and water echoing each step. In the darkness the stained glass windows had no trace of their daytime majesty; instead they only served to obscure, shifting points of light from the far off torches of his pursuers coming there here and there like dim fireflies. He stopped before the pulpit steps, and stood looking up at it for a moment. The hesitation this time wasn't fear, but he didn't particularly want to examine it. 

The sound of movement behind him made him tense. 

"Sol." 

He turned around, in time to watch Undersn's face change as he realized what Sol was carrying. There was no relief, not even a flicker -- only dawning horror. His eyes met Sol's in the darkness and Sol understood what he'd thought would happen, what he thought had happened, and it brought the anger rippling to the surface at last, bursting from him with a passion he hadn't felt in over a hundred years. 

"An organization filled with grown men, strong men, veterans of a hundred battles, and you send this child to stop me?" he said, inwardly astonished by how calm his voice was. His breath and the boy's plumed white in the chill, mingling together. 

Undersn's expression grew anguished. "So you did--"

"You think I killed him?" Sol snarled, the calm broken. "You think I murdered him and then came back here to throw his body at your feet? Is that what you think, Undersn?"

"I intended," Undersn said, the catch in his voice audible, "I intended to give you the blade all along, Sol."

An ugly laugh ripped out of him, deep and chilling. "You intended, huh," Sol said. "That's real fucking gracious of you. But it didn't happen the way you wanted, right? It wasn't under your control. So you sent him to find me."

"There are others searching--"

"You knew it would be him," he bellowed, and his voice echoed through the church. "You knew as soon as you told him I'd stolen it that he'd come for me, and you thought that maybe he'd kill me, or he'd die with honor, right?" 

The old man pressed his lips together, his face pale. Among the sound of the water dripping from both of them, Sol could hear the slightly thicker, slower sound of Ky's blood hitting the floor with every passing second. 

"He is his own man," Undersn said slowly. "I don't control him. He is our Commander now. He acts of his own volition."

"He's not a man," Sol snapped back, disgusted. "He's sixteen." 

"Please--"

"It would serve you right, you know, if I took him with me." The smile that touched his lips was cruel, and he made no effort to control it. "What if I took him from you, Undersn? It'd probably be pretty hard to find another replacement for your son, wouldn't it? Especially one as rare as he is. You'd have to train up a new one all over again, and you're getting kind of old, you know." 

Undersn blanched, but his voice was firmer now. "I believe it would take some incredible brainwashing to convince him to trust you again," he replied.

The anger vanished suddenly, and in its place he found only a hollow disgust. Sol turned back to the altar. 

"I've done hideous things, of course," he murmured. "You're right. I'm worthy of his hatred. But I'm not the one who raised him up to be alone, to be terrified of disappointing anyone, to carry the burden of the whole world on his shoulders. That's what you did to him, Undersn. You and your Order. And that's sure to kill him more effectively than I ever could."

He moved up the stairs. 

Ky stirred faintly as Sol laid him down on the altar, but subsided again once he was still, his head lowered as carefully as Sol could manage against the polished wood. He tucked Ky's arms carefully across his chest, and then reached around to unstrap the sword from his back. It murmured sleepily as he laid it at the boy's side, and that at least was a reassurance. He touched the boy's cheek again, and Ky made a soft, young noise, turning his head automatically towards the unnatural warmth of Sol's palm. He looked like he belonged there, even wet and filthy as he was, pale and bleeding, like a long awaited sacrifice. It wasn't far from the truth.

"I'm sorry," Sol said. He didn't know what else to say. Nothing would ever suffice.

When he came down the stairs again, Undersn moved to meet him, and he reached out with a lightning fast movement to seize the old man's shoulder in one fist.

"You remember," he said, his grip tight nearly to the point of crushing. "You remember who sent him to die in the dark, and who brought him back here before your god."

"He won't," Undersn replied, the muscles in his jaw twitching with anger and pain. "He wasn't yours to save."

"Someone had to." 

Sol let him go, and strode back out into the damp night, the sword's waking song an echo in his ears, the boy's blood still on his clothes, his loneliness nearly a physical ache in his chest.


End file.
